The Combustible Politics Of Obama's Clearest Break From Bush

President Barack Obama's nomination Monday of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as secretary of defense reignites an uncomfortable, and potentially combustible, debate over the foreign policy of the George W. Bush presidency.

The anticipated nomination had been under fire for weeks, as Hagel critics sought to use his positions on Israel and gay rights to fight the appointment. But under the surface, the controversy centers on Hagelís outspoken criticism of the war in Iraq, and Republican fears that the appointment would represent a clean break for Obama from the policies of the Bush years.

Hagel, after all, rose to national prominence for his blunt criticism of Bush's policy in Iraq and his "realist" -- even skeptical -- outlook on the use of U.S. military force as a tool of international engagement.

1. Actually, Hagel voted for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and he'd been a US Senator for 9 full years

before he started his 'blunt criticism of things I already voted for' era. He was already a well known Republican and anti choice, anti gay and voting for war like the rest of them for nearly a decade.
A clean break from Bush/Iraq would be a Democrat who did not support Bush/Iraq as Hagel did.

2. Would that be John Kerry? Or Hillary Clinton?

3. John Kerry actually did speak out against rushing to war

before it started at Georgetown University in January 2003. He also spoke of how war should be a last resort and said Iraq was not. It is not true to say that Kerry supported Bush on Iraq. There was never a doubt in my mind that had Kerry been President that he would not have gone to war. I think the same might be true of Hillary Clinton -- and possibly Chuck Hagel.